Tag: Florida

SubscribeStar Saturday: Florida on My Mind

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Regular readers know that I was supposed to be trucking down to Florida this weekend, but an outbreak of The Virus (not on my end, no worries) put a stop to those plans.  Instead, I’ll be hanging around South Carolina with my girl, and we’ll do a little leisurely sightseeing.

Still, Florida has been on my mind lately.  Thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis, it’s starting to look like a refuge for folks fleeing wokeness, buggery, and all manner of other forms of progressive-endorsed foolishness.

I love South Carolina, but if I had to live anywhere, I think it might be Florida.

This post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT: Road Trip!

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Note—when I first scheduled this post, I was still scheduled to go to Florida.  Due to The Virus afflicting one of my girlfriend’s sisters, we’ve postponed that trip.  So, instead, we’re going to do a little road-tripping around South Carolina this weekend.  We’ll be getting down to Florida in December, though, so while my return to Florida is delayed, I’m looking forward to visiting down there later this year.  Just pray for my sweet girlfriend—while we will have fun this weekend, I know she is heartbroken that she won’t get to see her family as planned.  —TPP

Tomorrow after school I’ll be riding down with my girlfriend to visit with her family in Florida.  After The Year of Universal Studios back in 2020, I haven’t made it back down that way in awhile, and I’m looking forward to a few days over Labor Day weekend in sunny central Florida.

We’ll be taking the Interstate Highway System most of the way, and I doubt there’ll be many backroads, but I’ve always enjoyed cruising the less-traveled pathways to see what little bits of Americana are out there, waiting to be discovered.  There’s still plenty of what John Derbyshire calls the “old, weird America” out there, and I love finding it (and, perhaps, living in it!).

Well, even if we aren’t hitting many backroads, I’m excited to be out and about on another footloose adventure!

With that, here is 22 July 2022’s “Road Trip!“:

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Fast Food Premium

The Portly Politico8 Comments

There’s been a lot of discussion of UBI—Universal Basic Income—over the last few years, especially with the presidential primary run of Andrew Yang.  The concept is seductive in its simplicity:  gut the welfare state and its behemoth apparatus of bureaucratic pencil pushers and middlemen, and just cut every adult citizen a monthly check.

For fiscal conservatives, it’s a particularly toothsome Devil’s Bargain:  streamline an inefficient and wasteful bureaucracy and simply direct deposit a grand every month into Americans’ checking accounts.  Of course, it’s a siren song:  we’d just get the payments and still suffer with an entrenched bureaucracy, claiming $1000 a month isn’t enough to meet the specialized needs of whatever community they pretend to support.

Even if the deal were struck and every redundant welfare program were eliminated, there UBI would still be a bad idea.  Besides the absurdity of merely paying people to exist, it’s inherently inflationary:  if you give everyone $1000 a month, prices are going to go up.  Just as college tuition has soared because universities realized they could jack up the price and federal loans would expand to cover the costs, UBI would cause a similar rise in prices.  Sure, it’d be great at first, but the inflationary effects would kick in quickly.

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Loomer for Congress

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.  The record of women’s suffrage has been dubious, but our nation has enjoyed its share of qualified and exceptional female politicians, such as South Carolina’s own Nikki Haley.

One woman to add to that group is Laura Loomer.  Loomer, 27, is running for Congress in President Trump’s home district in south Florida.  Today is the Republican primary, and The Portly Politico sincerely hopes Ms. Loomer wins.  If she does, she’ll go on to compete against Democrat Lois Frankel, who has represented Florida US House District 21 since 2013.

Loomer is the most-censored woman in America—probably the most censored person, period.  Her crime:  bucking the establishment orthodoxy.  Loomer gained notoriety a few years ago when she crashed a production of Julius Caesar that placed President Trump in the title role (remember, the Roman Senators stabbed Caesar), allowing for some macabre wish fulfillment among the well-heeled progressives in attendance.  She also handcuffed herself to Twitter headquarters to protest their double standards—banning the Right for the mildest of rhetoric, but upholding Leftist calls for violence against conservatives.

Loomer is so banned—she can’t use PayPal, Twitter, Facebook, Uber, etc.—that Comcast-Xfinity blocked her congressional campaign from sending texts and making calls to potential supporters!

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Phone it in Friday VII: Universal Studios

The Portly Politico10 Comments

As I wrote yesterday, I’m out on a rare vacation (other than Christmas, Spring Break, all summer, and every second- and third-tier holiday that falls on a Monday in the winter).  I’m down in Florida visiting Universal Studios Orlando with my family, and it’s been an amazing, tiring trip.  I tried filing away blog posts for while I was away, but couldn’t get enough done to have every day of my trip covered.

That said, we got back from Day 2 in the park a little while ago, and I’m slamming something out while playing with Mario Kart Hot Wheels with my almost-three-year old nephew.  Here are just some observations from my vacation.

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